Monday, October 11, 2010

On the heels of John Lennon's big day comes this very important day in the blogosphere: The Dish is turning 10!! (Making it a Libra blog, uniting John, Andrew, and me :) For all of you who think blogging is a more recent phenomenon than that, take note!

(I love his party hat and cake for the dogs. The man knows how to celebrate.)

Andrew is the blogger’s blogger. I read him several times every day for the sheer scope of ideas, for his clear, interesting, provocative, comforting voice, for the postings from his readers. He is a true pioneer of the form, as he says, “in 2000, there was Mickey and me, basically, in the political blogosphere”—-he taught us all by doing. He is so much richer than just a “political” blogger.

His blog (along with James Wolcott and Matt Zoller Seitz’s House Next Door) is the reason I started blogging: I wanted to join this amazing, self-empowered conversation myself, first hand.

And it was a thrill when Andrew did that literally by linking to my St. David’s day post last year, simply because I had emailed him and asked if he would be writing one for the day. That connection is the essence of blogging. We gave a collective nod to the Welsh on their national day—Dydd Gwly Dewi Dedwydd--because we both find that sort of tradition important.

Andrew’s description of the blogger’s joy is a perfect encaspulation:

“The original appeal, of course: the dream every writer has ever had since history began. To be able to write directly to other human beings, with no editor or publisher, no censor or commercial pressure, to open the mind to other open minds, to speak with as little fear as possible and to see what happens. I saw that potential in this new miraculous medium the first instant this blog was born; I see it now more clearly than ever.”

The “Toast or Roast” posts from his peers in honor of the day is wonderful reading.